Birthday Cake
by Blue Sailor
Summary: May 2nd is a slow night until two strangers walk into the restaurant. Outsider POV.
**A/N:** For my friend and beta-reader, RiverSongTam.

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It's a slow night when they come in, so everyone is eager for entertainment when the hostess darts back to the kitchen, gushing about the two handsome men she just seated in section B. Soon, the entire wait staff have found excuses to walk by and ogle them, and have confirmed the hostess's report. One of the men, the older one, is tall and burly, with surprisingly delicate features; the other is even taller, shaggy-haired, with a bright, dimpled smile. River is the lucky waitress who gets to serve them. After taking their order she has to spend a few minutes fanning herself in the kitchen, having been called "sweetheart" in the older man's impossibly husky voice.

The general consensus is that they're a couple. Maybe it's the way they lean forward to murmur to each other, their knees almost bumping together under the table; the way they watch each other, rapt, as if the other one is the only thing in the room worth looking at. In any case, it's impossible not to notice the veritable magnetic field that seems to flow between them.

There's something odd about them, too, though. It's hard to define, but it's something about the fading stain of old bruises across the older man's cheekbone, the gnarled scar on the younger one's left hand, the tiredness that lurks in their eyes, even when they smile. One of the bussers also notices the strangely heavy way their jackets seem to hang on them, as though loaded down with something other than change, keys, and phones; and once this is pointed out others begin to notice the mysterious bulges in the back of their waistbands, the glint of metal at their belts and in the tops of their boots.

It causes something of a stir, therefore, when the older man appears suddenly in the kitchen, having somehow entered through the noisy swinging doors and crossed the wet floor without so much as a squeak of his shoe.

"I'm lookin' for River," the man says, his eyes flickering over all of them in quick succession. "She back here somewhere?"

River steps out from behind the ice maker, fumbling with the scoop and bucket in her hands, nervous. The man grins at her.

"Hey, sweetheart," he says. "I was hoping I could get your help with something. See, it's my brother's birthday today—"

"Oh, your _brother_ , is it?" one of the other waitresses cuts in, raising her eyebrows suggestively, and a flush spreads across the man's cheeks.

"Anyway, it's his birthday," he continues determinedly, "and I was wondering if I could get a piece of cake for him. I know you guys don't do cake normally, but I don't have anything else to give him, and I was hoping…." He trails off, his eyes wide and pleading.

River agrees to rustle up a cake without even checking with the cooks first, though as it turns out, there's no need; they start cracking eggs and mixing flour and sugar before she's even finished assuring the man that they'll have a cake ready by the time he and his brother are done with their entrees.

He smiles at her again, and steps forward to give her a quick hug before leaving the kitchen. Everyone immediately erupts into speculation on his words, and whether the two strangers are really brothers. Some insist that it must be true, because nothing else could account for the depth of the bond they clearly share. Others maintain that it can't be, because aside from the sense of contained energy about both of them, and the way their eyes have the same habit of scanning warily from side to side, they don't look anything alike.

River is the only one who doesn't take sides in the debate. She's seen enough of them by now to know that whatever kind of love it is they share, it's the truest she's ever encountered; and when she takes the piece of cake out to them an hour later, she can tell by the way the younger man looks at the older one that it doesn't matter if they can't give each other presents on their birthdays, because they already have everything, anyway.


End file.
